The Lakewood community has long had a strong commitment to the arts, with Lakewood City Schools standing out for the strength of its music program.
Lakewood City Schools offers a wide range of opportunities to become involved with music. It starts by introducing instruments to students in fifth grade and building their music skills all the way through the end of high school.
LHS alone has multiple different music programs, including the renowned Lakewood Project. These classes and extracurricular bands help advance music education within Lakewood by teaching students how to not only play their instruments but also appreciate the effect music has on the community.
“We really care about music education, and we put it at the forefront of our vision for Lakewood Rangers,” said LHS’s orchestra director, Michael Dandron.
The Best Communities for Music Education Award recognizes school districts nationwide for advancing music education and making it accessible to students. Receiving this award demonstrates a commitment to the arts and to maintaining musical excellence.
For the past 10 years, the Lakewood City Schools has been recognized with this award for its outstanding music education programs. Lakewood has so many amazing music educators as well as classes, and it shows throughout their concerts how deeply music is rooted within Lakewood.
“We at the school can provide a consistently successful music education environment,” said Dandron. “It means that we’re doing our job and that it gives us a good standard to hold on to.”
Student commitment has especially improved over the past few years. Lakewood City Schools students not only learn to perform music, but also to arrange and compose it. Their dedication is evident in the number of concerts and musicals held throughout the district.
“More student leadership is where we’ve been,” Dandron said. “We’re letting them come up with fun, social events like Lakewood Project Olympics, more movie Days and going sledding as a group.”
Lakewood City Schools does an amazing job pushing its students to achieve their best. In band, orchestra and choir, there are multiple levels of classes within each program, allowing students to demonstrate increasing commitment as they advance.
“There are three different bands, and just going from band to band, you see how much more intense it gets and how much more passionate everyone is, how much harder, more hardworking everyone is,” said wind ensembleist Miles Evans. “It really comes from just having a district that supports you so much and having great music boosters as well.
By supporting the music program as much as the Music Boosters and the district have, the programs have been able to really blossom. This growth is reflected not only in students’ musical talent, but also in the connections they make while participating in these programs.
“It used to be like we were just kind of like stand partners, but now we’ve built a friendship,” said violist and Symphony Orchestra member Ethan Moore. “I feel like there’s been a bigger positive change for the program that I’ve noticed, and everyone is really nice in it as well.”
The only way a music program truly excels as much as Lakewood’s does is if the students care about the art they perform. With the tremendous amount of support from the district that Lakewood gets, the students enjoy making music and continue to get better for the sake of playing music.
“You’re not doing it for points, you’re doing it because you want the whole band to be better, and you want to play music better, and that’s just like, that’s kind of the spirit I hope to pass along,” said Evans.
The BCME award doesn’t just represent the music within Lakewood schools, but also the commitment and support of the students, staff and district towards each other. It shows how much of a community Lakewood is, and how music brings people together.
“It’s 10 years in a row, and that just kind of shows the care of everyone in the music program,” Evans said. “I think that’s just great to continue that legacy.”
